In the current information age, mobile information technology (IT) tools are extensively used by members of the public, as well as by enterprises and other organizations, in order to provide convenient storage of various documents and data. In particular, mobile devices such as smartphones, notebook and laptop computers, PDAs (personal digital assistants), tablet computing devices, and so forth, are becoming extremely prolific. Such devices are able to store the documents and data of the user, and allow the user to access such information in many different locations.
When users with such mobile terminal devices wish to print documents, files or other information stored on the mobile terminal devices, the users are often forced to upload the desired documents to a web server, document hosting service or some other application program that is provided in the “cloud”, i.e. that is hosted on a network such as the World Wide Web or Internet.
There is a significant drawback, however, in that transmitting documents and data to the Internet or a cloud-based service for printing may pose significant security risks. That is, since the data may be retained on a publically-accessible network, there is a possibility that the data may be intercepted and obtained by unauthorized third parties. Thus, many users may not wish to send print jobs to the cloud, especially if the print jobs include information of a private or confidential nature.
There exists a need for an improved system from printing documents and other information from mobile terminal devices such as smartphones, notebook and laptop computers, PDAs (personal digital assistants), tablet computing devices, etc.